56,540,000 Women Not in Labor Force

The number of women outside the workforce decline slightly in October, according to new government data released Friday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 56,540,000 women (ages 16 and over) were not employed or had made an effort over the past four weeks to find a job. October’s figures represented a decline of 107,000 from September’s record-breaking level of 56,647,000 women not in the workforce.

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The workforce level for women mirrored the situation nationally, which saw the number of people outside the workforce at elevated levels but down slightly compared to September. Overall, 94,513,000 Americans were out of the workforce in October.

While the number of people out of the workforce remained high, the the economy did add 271,000 jobs and the official unemployment rate is 5.0 percent.

Women experienced a similar trend. The month of October saw 236,000 more women added to the “employed” column and an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent.

The civilian labor force for women also increased by 214,000 to 73,527,000 last month and the labor participation rate also increased 0.1 percent over September’s participation rate to 56.5 percent.

Among women in the workforce 69,901,000 had jobs and 3,627,000 were unemployed.